‘Honey, maybe you can learn to tell the time properly before figuring out all those bells and whistles. But how lovely, I can’t wait to see it. How was school, sweetie?’

‘Yep, good. We had running this afternoon and I came second.’

‘That’s great, Daisy. You can practise by running along the sand. Now I better talk to Nana again. Would you put her back on the phone, please? Love you lots, darling.’ She heard Daisy singing as she skipped away, having handed the phone back to Tina. ‘Mum, can you believe that present? Stupid and extravagant.’

‘I know! Typical Lawrence,’ said Tina.

‘I don’t hear from him for weeks about the care of his daughter, and then he sends her an expensive, inappropriate gift, without even consulting me? What does a five-year-old want with a smart watch?’

‘Tell me about it. She almost broke it two minutes after opening it. But don’t worry,’ said Tina. ‘She’ll forget about it soon enough, since most of the functions are of no use to her. Tell me more about what you’ve been doing.’

Grace made an effort to calm herself before she began. ‘Well, we’ve started shooting, which means there’s a lot of editing. The crew here is excellent and Steve is so good to work with; he just has such an eye, and he’s very creative. I’m really enjoying it, Mum, but I can whip back home if you ever need me to.’

‘If anything else happens with Lawrence I’ll let you know, but we’re fine for now, love. Send me some more photos when you get a chance so I can show Daisy. She’s been wondering about where you are. You know, what it’s like and who’s there.’

‘Will do. I hope I can get you both over here soon. I can’t wait for you to see everything. The holiday scene seems a bit crazy, though. Some people think that when they’re away they can go mad and do stuff they’d never do at home. The celebrity chefs, the millionaire DJs, the jetset in the A-list bars, the bogans in bean bags with beers . . . I had heard it was like this, but I think I needed to see it to believe it.’

‘Well, I’ll brace myself,’ said Tina dryly. ‘I’m starting to get excited about coming over there, though. Your place sounds amazing. Like I said, send more photos. I loved the ones you sent from the disco in Singapore.’

‘AJ the DJ. Yes, it was pretty wild. Haven’t let my hair down like that for a while. That’s Johnny, the owner’s son I’m twirling with. Just about everyone hit the dance floor.’

‘It was nice to see you having fun, Grace.’

‘It was nice to have fun – and the place was incredible.’